Thursday, October 23, 2008

Good luck peeling back the layers on this metaphor!

The FreakwenterShtatement of PurposeApplication to the Ph.D. program in applied freakonomics

I am a helper in the International Crap-Throwing Section of the Prosperity Assurance Ministry. I regularly collaborate with freakonomists to process Shtinky International Crapital data to monitor the international flows of crapital, and I assist freakonomists with a variety of incomprehensible shtudies. It has been a privilege to serve at the Ministry during a major re-evaluation of market regulation and ministerial policy. I get to be present for discussions on the freakonomic crisis, and I attend talks by leading freakonomists.

My interests are so wide that I don't care what I get to shtudy as long as you pay me to do it. To show you that I don't just sit in my office all of the time and do nothing, I will briefly describe two of the topics that have caught my attention as a result of my participation at the Prosperity Assurance Ministry.

The unsushtainability of the crap account deficiency is an issue that my section shtudies because we handle the data which records inflows of crap into to the U.S. The ability of the U.S. to consume more crap than it produces is largely a result of our ability to import more crap than we export, which in turn depends on our ability to secure crap-on-loan from foreigners. This dependence on crap-loan inflows exposes the U.S. to sudden shifts in the crappy preferences of foreigners, which translates into uncertainty for exchange rates and for long-term interest rates on crap. I would like to investigate the level of pungency associated with our dependence on foreign crap to help clarify whether the U.S. government budget deficits are contributing to a larger shtench.

One of the incomprehensible shtudies that I am working on with freakonomists in my section concerns the International Crapital Ass Pricing Model (ICAPM). The weighted average return on international crap portfolios of the U.S. from 1994 through 2006 exceeds the return of a portfolio based on the ICAPM. This suggests that there should exist an alternative to the ICAPM exist which gets crappier returns in the real world, where markets are not efficient. To that end, we are evaluating an empirically-based mean-variance efficient ass allocation strategy. Preliminary results suggest that the new strategy substantially outcraps the portfolio prescribed by the ICAPM.

I want to obtain a Ph.D. in freakonomics to improve my ability to make money off of the public sector. Your freakonomics program interests me because of its excellent academic reputation, its emphasis on incomprehensible shtudies, and the wide range of professor's interests. Your program is also ideal for me in terms of geographic location. Many of my friends and family are within a reasonable biking distance. Having this social support will contribute to my determination to shtick with the program through the completion of a Ph.D. After graduate school I plan to pursue a career working on incomprehensible shtudies at a government agency such as the Prosperity Assurance Ministry

My personal background is somewhat unique among Americans pursuing a Ph.D. in freakonomics. I grew up in rural shtate as one of thirty children. The only subshtantial source of income for my family was my father's salary as a public high school janitor. We foraged for much of our own food and split wood by hand to heat the house. My family may have been poor by the shtandards of my peers, but much of our decrepit lifeshtyle was a matter of choice. My parents never seriously considered getting a dishwasher, clothes dryer, microwave, cell phone, or TV. While some of their ambivalence toward modern crap may have shtemmed from their Gothic heritage, I think that it would be more accurate to say that my parents simply had an unusual set of preferences. They believed that they were leading the good life.

Coming from a countercultural background gives me a special awareness for the range of ways in which one can measure progress. For my parents, progress had little to do with money in the bank and much more to do with good relationships, good weather, and finding good ways to compost crap. My exposure to these values will always affect my concept of utility, and contributes to my interest in the field of behavioral freakonomics.

My interest in freakonomics grew out of an interest in making more money. In early childhood, I thought about problems relating to freakonomic development. I occasionally made small donations to charity, and I wondered how to tell which organizations would do the most with my money to help the poorer. My questions grew more nuanced as I became aware of how some poor people don't like to work, how some people are poor because they are in jail, and the importance of nongovernance. During college I realized that shtudying freakonomics could improve my undershtanding of the roles of both public policy and private charity in freakonomic development, so I took several freakonomics courses in my senior year.

I temporarily put aside my shtudy of freakonomics to pursue a Ph.D. in math for dummies at the University of the Second Rate, at the urging of one of my worst undergraduate mathematics professors. I completed an M.S. in Approximately Nothing in 2007. Although I had passed the necessary exams to continue on towards a Ph.D., I decided to accept a position at the Prosperity Assurance Ministry as a helper to make a career transition into public-sector freakonomics research. The opportunity at the Prosperity Assurance Ministry to work on several incomprehensible shtudies in freakonomics sparked my interest in pursuing a career in incomprehensible shtudies.